NaNoWriMo Me

Over the weekend I spent some time in Barnes and Noble, writing my novel. That's right: I'm writing a novel. I have to keep saying it so I'll make it come true. Besides, it's a fun thing to say, and technically it's true. The sort of slippery part there is "novel," but for the purposes of National Novel Writing Month, 50,000 words is a novel, and I'm over one-fifth of the way there. Heck, I'm nearly a quarter of the way there, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. And of course it helps if the 50,000 words all work together somehow, in some semblance of connection, as in with a plot and characters and scenes and whatnot, but it's not critical. I'm not worrying about these things. That's the whole point. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be.

So I was sitting there in Barnes and Noble writing my novel, and I overheard some guy ask one of the employees this question: "Can you tell me how to get to Borders?" The B&N employee was pleasant, even almost like purposely outgoing and friendly. He gave good directions. And when the questioner walked away, the B&N employee said "thank you." Is that professionalism, or what? Is customer service supposed to serve the competition?

Posted November 11, 2002 07:40 AM | life generally